15 Things you may not know about Raiders of the Lost Ark

Harrison Ford was not the first choice for Indy. Steven Martin, Bill Murray, Nick Nolte and Jack Nicholson were all considered for the role to name but a few.

Indy's battered leather jacket was actually brand new and had to be artificially aged by the costume department. There were 10 jackets for general wear and tear and stunt purposes.

The original name of the lead character in the script was Indiana Smith. His name was changed to Jones on the first day of production.

The famous scene in which Indy shoots a swordsman was not in the original script. Harrison Ford was supposed to use his whip to get the swords out of his attacker's hands, but the food poisoning he and the rest of the crew had gotten made him too sick to perform the stunt. After several unsuccessful tries, Ford suggested "shooting the sucker."

The spirit effects at the climax were achieved by shooting mannequins underwater in slow motion through a fuzzy lens to achieve an ethereal quality.

During filming in Tunisia, nearly everyone in the cast and crew got sick, except director Steven Spielberg. It is thought that he avoided illness by eating only the food he'd brought with him: cans and cans of Spaghetti-O's.

When Indie's hat was made the brim was shaped to cover his eyes for protection and to help hide faces when stunt doubles were being used.

The canyon where Indy threatens to blow up the Ark is the same one where the Jawas take R2-D2 in 'Star Wars.'

Harrison Ford actually outran the boulder in the opening sequence. Because the scene was shot twice from five different angles, he had to outrun it ten times. Ford's stumble in the scene was deemed to look authentic and was left in

Renowned British wrestler Pat Roach gets killed twice in this film - once as a giant Sherpa left in the burning Nepalese bar and once as the German mechanic chewed up by the plane's propeller.

Indiana Jones' kangaroo-hide bull whip was sold in December, 1999 at Christie's auction house in London for $43,000. His jacket and hat are on display at the Smithsonian.

The out-of-control airplane actually ran over Harrison Ford's knee, tearing his ligaments. Rather than submit to Tunisian health care, Ford had his knee wrapped in ice and carried on.

The name Marion Ravenwood was a combination of two names: Marion was the grandmother of Lawrence Kasdan's wife, and Ravenwood was from Ravenwood Court, a small street off Beverly Glen.

During the scene where Indiana threatens Nazis with bazooka, you can clearly see a fly creeping into the mouth of Paul Freeman, and he swallows it.

Early concept art for the character who ultimately became Toht depicted him as a uniformed Nazi officer with a mechanical arm that doubled as a machine gun and a radio antenna built into his head.